With a floor plan of only 48 square meters (515 square feet!) and 3 months to gut and refit this 2 bedroom apartment, there is no question that this project was challenging! Scott Weston (his amazing house tour is one of my all time favorites) took on this project and the results are impressive. An incredibly beautiful, practical space that meets all of the owners needs.

While there are so many different elements of this apartment that we find inspiring, the biggest would be the clever introduction of ample storage space; the most impressive being the "magicians box" that divides the kitchen from the office and the built in shelving surrounding the wall of the bedroom. In the bedroom there is also a wall of storage space, inside which all of the draws and cupboards are orange — too special!

Scott so kindly took some time to answer some of the questions we had about this project:

What attracted you to work on this project?The Clients attracted me to the project because rather than upscaling to a bigger apartment or home they decided to stay put and purge themselves of unnecessary clutter in life which was very liberating.

What was the biggest challenge you faced with this project?Balancing the Clients budget with the greater scope of work because the apartment needed total gutting, re-wiring, plumbing and these are big ticket items when renovating. A large portion of money was put aside to bring the apartment up to date and then the remainder was carefully allocated against the different rooms (bathroom, kitchen, office etc.) and associated materials and finishes.

What is your favorite element of the finished apartment?I think the hand-painted multi-functional box that straddles the kitchen, living and office spaces. It provides both functional and aesthetic consideration to the apartment and reminds me of a giant magicians box with hidden concealed compartments to all three sides.

If you could do the project again, would you do anything differently?There is nothing I would do differently as it was designed and documented specifically for the Client. As with all projects you constantly learn along the way and in hindsight always use what you have learned on the next project.